N.J. kid inventors pitch green products at Liberty Science Center

The "aha moment" for Arjun Nagendran came one recent afternoon while he was mopping up the muddy paw prints his cocker spaniel, Rocky, had tracked across the house — again.

"I thought, "Why not make shoes for dogs?’" the 10-year-old from Parsippany said.

For most kids, the moment might have ended right there. But for Nagendran and five of his classmates from Littleton School, a random idea proved genius Wednesday when they won first place at the first-ever Student Inventors Day at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City.

The winning invention, "Green Paws" — an eco-friendly dog bootie made from bark, tree leaves and recycled rubber — got the group a $1,000 prize, two television appearances and a shot at being the next "As Seen on TV" hit product.

More than 20 schools, mostly of them from New Jersey, gathered at the center to pitch their green inventions. Each team had 10 minutes to make their pitch to the judges.

One team had the "Sprinkl’em," an umbrella stand that never molds because excess water trickles down to a planter, where herbs and flowers can thrive. Another invention, described as a noiseless vacuum cleaner, claimed to suck up trash by using air suction — though a demonstration with a prototype showed the process required a good amount of manual pumping.

After listening to each presentation, the judges asked questions of the young inventors.

"Have you done market research to show pregnant women will actually want to use this?" Emlyn Koster, head of the Liberty Science Center, asked after a pitch about the "Tire Savior," a long contraption that allows the user to clean car tires without bending down.

The team, from Heights Middle School in Jersey City, nodded and spewed out Census statistics about pregnant women and disabled people — their target demographic — and repeated their point about preventing neck and back pain.

Not everything went well. Two students were left momentarily speechless when their prototype for "Sci-Fizz," a drink carbonator, exploded and spewed sticky juice across the floor.

"Oh, my God. Okay, it works, it definitely works," Sarah Brown, 11, a sixth-grader at the Jewish Educational Center in Elizabeth, said after composing herself.

Many teams came with practical ideas inspired by their parents. Casey Popowski, a sixth-grader from Nicholas Oresko School in Bayonne, said she got the idea for the "Swing-It" — a high-heel shoe that can transform into flats by snapping and folding the heel under — after hearing her mother complain about foot pain.

"After work, when she picks me up, I want her to be comfortable," she said.

But Casey’s team apparently had not thought out their pricing strategy. The students said they planned to sell the product for $19.99, even though it would cost $25 to make — a glitch they said would disappear after more people bought their shoes. The "Swing-It" took third place. A.J. Khubani, CEO of infomercial giant Telebrands and one of the judges on the panel, said his only concern with the "Swing-It" was that "women choose looks over comfort when it comes to shoes."

In the end, Khubani said, it was the Parsippany team’s Green Paws product that stood out, particularly because his company had been looking into the very idea of how to keep paws clean.

Pet products are usually popular sellers, he said, noting that his company has marketed four pet contraptions this year alone. And while his executives had floated the idea of paw wipes, they had never thought of booties, he said.

"We thought about cleaning pets’ paws, but we never thought about keeping them clean in the first place," Khubani said after the event. "They actually have an idea that’s marketable."

The company will begin conducting market research on Green Paws this week, he said.

But Arjun and his team will have to hold off another day before they receive congratulations from their classmates.

The students will be interviewed about their invention this morning on Fox 5’s Good Day New York, before appearing this evening on WNBC’s New York Nightly News with Chuck Scarborough.